Costa Mediterranea

Overall Rating

David Law

Age: 54

Occupation:professional

Number of Cruises: 3

Cruise Line: Costa

Ship: Costa Mediterranea

Sailing Date: 2010-09-17

Itinerary: Mediterranean Discovery

The itinerary was excellent; stopping at several sites famous for ancient civilizations - amongst them Alexandria (for the pyramids), Athens, Ephesus and Rome. The crew, especially the animation team worked very hard presenting a lot of activities to keep the guests entertained. The cabin staff was pleasant and generally helpful. However there were many badly behaved guests who do not care to queue, smoke where they are not supposed to and children using the adults pool. When we politely requested another guests to queue he replied "shut up you ***** I'll break your legs". It was also very shocking that other guests and some staff stood by and did nothing!

Food was just average, and except for vegetarian choices, all other selections were precooked and refrigerated.

It was very clean and the amenities were adequate but only very limited television channels in English (unless you pay for the movies).

There were lots of activities especially round the poolside, the group dancing was very lively and good fun. The shows were also entertaining, and the violin/piano duo in one of the bars was a very nice change.

It is advisable to book the shore excursions for the pyramids because of the traveling distances involved, the security and punctuality is most important. All Alexandria excursions wind up in the papyrus museum which is supposed to demonstrate the making of paper but in fact that took only 5 minutes at most and the museum was more an emporium with the rest of the time meant for the guests to purchase items there!

For most of the other stops it is fairly easy to find your own way around (unless the destination is quite far like Lindos from Rhodes or Olympia from Katakolon). Excursions to Ephesus (from Izmir) is much better by private arrangement because the ship does either Ephesus or House of Virgin Mary but not both due to the time factor, however a private tour can manage it.